Supreme Court Reaffirms Wavie’s APC Candidacy, Dismisses Akpovoka’s suit

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed the candidature of Hon. (Rev.) Francis Ejiroghene Waive, dismissing an appeal filed by the embattled All Progressive Congress, APC House of Representative aspirant Mr Julius Efeni Akpovoka, describing it “as an abuse of court process”.

Akpovoka, one of the aspirants who lost to Hon. Waive, representing Ughelli North, Ughelli south and Udu federal constituency was said to have allegedly forged documents stating that Waive withdrew from the race.

He was said to have paraded himself as candidate of APC in Ughelli North, Ughelli south and Udu federal constituency following the documents but when the party leadership discovered the alleged fraud they ignored him and upheld Waive as candidate of the party.

Not satisfied, Akpovoka approached about three federal High courts and two states High Courts with similar reliefs which were dismissed and struck out for lacks of merit.

He later approached the Supreme Court in suit No: Sc/957/2019 challenged the judgment of Court of Appeal Benin Division which had earlier dismissed his suit, holding that it was statue bar and abuse of court process.

However, the learned Justices of Supreme Court in a landmark judgment affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal Benin declaring the suit as statute barred, thereby dismissing the case.

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Arriving at it judgement, the Supreme Court drew the attention of Akpovoka’s lawyer to the erudite and sound judgment of the Court of Appeal, that the case was statute barred.

The Supreme court counted the 14 days of the action and concluded that the Court of Appeal was too generous to count it in the manner they did.

It further held that “the case was an abuse of court processes having filed multiple cases on the same subject matter.”

It also affirmed that the alleged “letter of withdrawal been paraded by Akpovoka was completely false.”

Meanwhile when Akpovoka’s lawyer was asked to see page 178 of the record of the Court of Appeal, he told court that he lost his bag with the Record in it.

The court went on to admonish him saying that all his scheming has eventually caught up with him. 

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The court gave him no option than to withdraw the motion to abridge time as well as withdraw the substantive appeal.

The appeal was consequently dismissed.

Reacting to the judgment, Hon. Francis Wavie applauded the courage of the Supreme court justices, adding that the judgment has rekindled his faith in Nigeria.

According to him, “this judgement renews my faith in our country. What was happening was gross abuse of the judicial process and I wondered who will call a spade by it’s name.

“Our Supreme Court Justices are bold, courageous and fair. I salute them all.

“Permit me to also inform everyone that the 2019 elections are over. Let’s concentrate on bringing good governance and the dividends of Democracy to our people. 

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“I again commit myself making the difference for the betterment of my constituents”, he added.